Source: Heck - Tumblr Posts

"Pull the stick out of your arse and learn t'fight with that, you ungrateful, shit-spewing weasel," Anne suggests, voice low and tone hostile but all of it cold, devoid of rage. Anne crosses her arms in front of her chest and leans over into their face from the front. "Fuckin embarrassin, puttin my good standin' on the line only t'have ye whine when ye don't hear what ye wanted. My only interest was in makin ye less of a fuckin liability, and that, ye scum-sucking son of a whore, en't something ye're goin t'learn sitting on yer FUCKING arse!"

Anne's FUCKING echoes over the water like a gunshot, the only clear burst of anger in her. She sneers but at least holds herself back from spitting on their shoes, pivoting to retrieve the last of the knives before her fidgety hands worm out of her arms and around their neck anyway.

Despite her better judgement, the long days with nothing to do eventually lure Anne back into the jam room. She can remember a time (lifetimes ago, surely) when she was a wain brought to the music room to meet her instructor. She’d slammed the piano lid down on his fingers and was never again made to practice music, though at her mam’s knee she’d learned the spoons and sang in a voice that made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in talent, a plain voice given more to crowing than to singing. (She sounds better these days, but not by much.)

She doesn’t open any instruments or make any ruckus: she’s just wandering about, as aimless in her feet as in her mind as she takes a seat, reaching into the inner pocket of her coat. The other room seemed oppressive, somehow, but there was no work to be done to make up for that. She’d decided she wanted the sunlight to read by, and found it a quieter place here than in the galley or on the deck, with fewer prying gazes. When she’d borrowed the play from Bonnet’s library, she’d only meant to reread her father’s favorite line. Fix it back right in her mind, since she had both the time and the means for it for a change…

…but in the dirt-dulled sunlight falling in a slant through the port windows, Anne finds herself starting at the beginning instead.

In sooth I know not why I am so sad. / It wearies me, you say it wearies you. / But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, / What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born, / I am to learn. / And such a want-wit sadness makes of me / That I have much ado to know myself.

FUCK YOUR MOTHER!, but that hurt! Anne hisses in pain as the dumb fuck astride her actually borrows a page out of her own book and bites her. She forms a fist, punching sideways at their temple to stun them. “Let up, ye wretched BITCH!”

Jesus Haytch, wasn’t a year ashore in Cuba penitence enough paid for the sin of picking Jack fucking Rackham? Has she got to pay for him with her life, too? Almost a year out of sorts and a bit out of shape, Anne isn’t interested in trying her luck too long with this game of strength. She isn’t a strong weapon, she’s a fast one. Fast and fierce.

If this takes too long, even the ones in the audience who know her will doubt who she is. Then, even if she wins this idiot “fight to the death” tripe, she’ll be called a fraud and no one will believe a word she says.

With a scream she rolls the pair of them over, using her caught arm as a lever to knock the other one’s head against the floor. Not a strong weapon…so she’ll have to be a smart one. “Play unconscious or I’ll put ye there,” she threatens—promises—careful to bear her weight on the other one’s middle as evenly as possible.

She’d rather play this without having to kill some poor stupid cunt first thing, and that’s only going to be accomplished by borrowing from (God help her) Teach’s playbook and pulling a “fuckery” fully on-the-spot improvised, with the unwitting help of the stranger below her. No big deal. Right? She pretends to lever her weight down on her arm again, but keeps most of it in the knees planted on either side of them, screaming in admittedly terrible mock-rage despite the convincing way she moves her body.

She just has to hope the dumbarse will play along.